Read "The Robbers' Cave" by Charlotte Maria Tucker online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
The parting from Raphael gave a keen pang to Horace. He could scarcely have believed that in so short a space of time, any human being could have obtained so strong a hold upon his affections. Pity, gratitude, admiration had combined in a three-fold cord to knit to his heart the man whose fate had been so singularly linked with his own, and who was now freely risking life to save him. But Horace had no time to dwell on tender recollections at a moment like this. The absorbing instinct of self-preservation claimed now the first place in his mind. Every minute of delay increased the danger of the dreaded Matteo's return. Horace must pass along that perilous ledge, close in front of the ruffian whose strong arm could, were his slightest suspicion aroused, hurl the stripling over the beetling precipice to lie a mangled corpse in the valley below.
"Speranza! Speranza! Hope! " Horace repeated to himself, less from the fear that in the excitement of the moment the pass-word might escape his memory, than from an effort to draw encouragement from the sound. "God be my helper! God be my hope! " And drawing Raphael's mantle yet more closely round his form, and pulling the hat lower over his eyes, with a palpitating heart, yet a firm, brave step, Horace Cleveland strode forth into the moonlight, which had never before appeared to him so painfully brilliant.